JEREMIAH Lesson 53 I first met Jeremiah in the early 1970’s. Living in Rochester, New York, I rode the bus to school each day. On the bus, a regular event was the singing of one song or another. (Yes, this sounds rather bizarre, but as elementary school children, we thought it quite natural and even “cool”). It was spring of my fifth- grade year when the song that was a bus staple began, Jeremiah was a bull-frog Was a good friend of mine… The song did not make much sense to me, but then again, I was only in fifth-grade, and the tune was very catchy! It was not until I read a 2008 interview with lead singer Chuck Negron that I found out the song was nonsense to the group Three Dog Night as well. Negron gave a reporter an interview about the line adding, You know what it is. It’s just a silly line. When it started it was “Jeremiah was a prophet,” but no one really liked that.1 If the radio-hit had begun, “Jeremiah was a prophet,” I am not certain it would have made any more sense to me. I next met Jeremiah in 1972, and this time I found out what he looked like! Jeremiah’s last name was “Johnson” and he looked uncannily like the Sundance Kid from the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid movie! Of course, Jeremiah Johnson was not the biblical Jeremiah, and Robert Redford likely bears little resemblance to the Biblical Jeremiah. It was 1980 before I really spent much time studying the biblical Jeremiah. At this point over thirty years later, he reminds me of a number of my friends! I have spent a good bit of time with him, but not nearly as much as I would like. Jeremiah is possibly my favorite book in the Old Testament. (It is certainly in my top five!)2 1 Interview with Bainbridge Island Review, Aug. 18, 2008. Available online at http://www.bainbridgereview.com/entertainment/27111724.html?period=W&mpStartDate=05- 15-2010. www.Biblical-literacy.com Copyright 2012 by W. Mark Lanier. Permission hereby granted to reprint this document in its entirety without change, with reference given, and not for financial profit. It has so much material, such a depth of character presentation; it is tied closely within its historical setting, yet it maintains a vision of the future. It is a collection of material, not a chronological presentation, so it is ripe for (and demands) thorough and careful study. Its history was a time that is unfolding today in archaeological digs, adding a depth and current flavor to an old familiar book. It is a marvelous book worthy of years of study, and we are going to attempt to consider it within the confines of this one lesson. This lesson, therefore, has little chance to even scratch the surface of the material in Jeremiah. Rather than simply cruise at an altitude of 40,000 feet trying to get a vision of the terrain, we are going to go down for a closer view, looking at the book with two different questions: (1) Who was Jeremiah the man? (2) What was Jeremiah’s core message? Even on these two points, the material will necessarily be brief; however, we hope to provide a bit of depth along with resources for those who wish to pursue further studies.3 2 I am not alone in my appreciation for the book. In antiquity, Jeremiah was appreciated and noted. 2 Chronicles 35:25 spoke of a lament Jeremiah wrote for King Josiah. Then in 36:16-21, the Chronicler cites Jeremiah’s prophecies about the restoration of the Jews. Daniel 9:2 cites as authority Jeremiah’s prophetic dating of the exile. There is a “letter of Jeremiah” (also known as the “Epistle of Jeremy” that purports to be a letter written by Jeremiah to Jews about to be exiled in Babylon. This letter is in Catholic Bibles as the final chapter in Baruch chapter 6. A fragment of this letter has been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, indicating its usage by the Qumran community approximately 100 BC along with two other apocryphal works ascribed to Jeremiah. (See, Abegg, et al., The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible (Harper 1999), at 383. The intertestamental book 2 Maccabees records the tradition that Jeremiah hid the “Tent of the Lord’s presence and the Covenant Box” in “the mountain where Moses had looked down on the land which God had promised.” There, Jeremiah “found a huge cave” and “hid the Tent of the Lord’s Presence, the Covenant Box, and the altar of incense. Then he sealed up the entrance” (2 Mac. 2:2-5, Good News Translation). The New Testament has many quotations and references from Jeremiah. Jewish tradition accords Jeremiah as the “Prophet Historian” who compiled the Kings histories. (See Encyclopaedia Judaica, Thompson Gale 2007, Vol. 11 at 125). 3 A sample of what we miss with this approach is a study of the text that goes behind our Bible translations. We have the Hebrew traditional text handed down through the Middle Ages (called “the Masoretic Text” referencing the Masoretic scribes who copied it for centuries. We also have copies of the Greek Septuagint (Jewish translation(s) of the Old Testament into Greek that pre- date the New Testament) of Jeremiah, as well as Dead Sea Scrolls fragments of much of the book. The Greek text is noticeably shorter than the Masoretic text, leaving out introductory sections (e.g., 2:1-2a, etc.), as well as repetitive sections (6:22-24 and 50:41-43), and a number of “Thus says the LORD” phrases. The Septuagint also orders the book differently. At least two major scrolls seem to follow a Hebrew text close to that used by the translators of the Septuagint. Scholars differ on why the texts differ, some thinking the longer Masoretic text has later add-ons 2 JEREMIAH THE MAN As we consider the life of Jeremiah, we do so mainly from the text of the book that bears his name. From this book, we can glean a lot of information, as the book is the largest among all the latter prophets.4 It contains a wide variety of different types of material including biographical and autobiographical sections, poetic discourses, reports on oral and written sermons, historical narratives, and messages both to individuals and to nations. In the midst of this mass of material, we have the obvious information from the biographical sections, but we also glean insight into Jeremiah in the non-biographical sections.5 A good example is in the prophecy of the coming Babylonian conquest as judgment on Judah in Jeremiah 4:5ff. After setting out the coming destruction, Jeremiah proclaims, My anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain! Oh the walls of my heart! My heart is beating wildly; I cannot keep silent, for I hear the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war (Jer. 4:19). We quickly see how personally Jeremiah took the message. This emotional involvement is even more apparent in the Hebrew text. “My anguish, my anguish!” is, in Hebrew, me‘ay me‘ay. It literally means, “my intestines, my intestines!” In colloquial English, we could easily translate this, “I am so sick to my stomach, I am hurting!” So, we carefully look throughout the book to garner insight into Jeremiah the man. by an editor, while others think that the Septuagint and Dead Sea texts are edited/shortened versions seeking to simplify the text. A detailing of some of many passages along with a theory that the short version was first and the longer second is found in Tov, Emanuel, The Greek & Hebrew Bible: Collected Essays on the Septuagint (Brill 1999), at 363ff. 4 We know from the text of Jeremiah that others were involved in the writing. His secretary Baruch, for example, took dictation and wrote sections (see Jer. 36:1-4, 32). 5 Not surprisingly, scholars differ on how much material is “reliable” for discussing Jeremiah as a person. The spectrum ranges from those who question any reliability in the authenticity of the material to those who find it fully reliable. This is largely determined by the presuppositions of the scholars. We will follow the text in this lesson as a reliable accounting of Jeremiah’s life and ministry. 3 Basic Background Jeremiah’s name in Hebrew (yerimyahu) means “YHWH founded” or “May YHWH lift up.” Both ideas suit Jeremiah. As Jeremiah began his prophetic ministry, the Word of the LORD came to him, affirming that God had set him apart and consecrated him as a prophet before his conception (Jer. 1:5). So strong is this proclamation in Jeremiah that early rabbinic tradition kept alive a legend that Jeremiah was already circumcised when he was born!6 This prophetic word from the LORD came when Jeremiah was “only a youth” (Jer. 1:6). The Hebrew for “youth” is na‘ar, which does not give us his age, but does affirm Jeremiah as a youth (also translated “boy” and “lad”), still dependent on his family for support.7 Not surprisingly, Jeremiah’s time of prophetic work spanned many years of Judah’s history. The internal evidence indicates that Jeremiah started around 627 BC (the “thirteenth year” of king Josiah’s reign, Jer. 1:2). He continued to prophesy through and after the fall of Judah 41 years later in 586 BC. Jeremiah came from a family of priests. His father was a priest “in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin” (Jer.